The Netherlands closed prisons after it decriminalized drugs.
Personally, I think this should be decided at the neighborhood level, like many social issues. If people are ok with it where they live, it should be allowed. If they don't want it around their kids, that should be possible as well.
Restricting other people's rights because "THINK OF MY CHILDREN!" is how we got in to a lot of these messes in the first place.
I mean, what if your daughter got high on the marijuanas and dated a Negro? The shame it would bring on the family!
- Criminalizing anything and everything they can
- SWAT teams abusing and murdering at will, serving warrants with extreme violence
- militarization of police forces
- the espionage state, from the NSA to the FBI
- destruction of justice, through techniques such as parallel construction
- the treatment of all individuals as potential terrorists
- the spread of the TSA and DHS throughout American society, whether it's needed or not, including trial runs of setting up checkpoints on interstates and at sporting events
- military projection by the federal government, war and bombings without any authorization by Congress
- droning, the murder of civilians anywhere and at any time just based on supposedly trying to kill terrorists
- trial balloons for arresting people based on free speech issues, eg saying something on Facebook
- using the espionage act, among other laws, to prosecute leakers and journalists; and or otherwise intimidate journalists, including with illegal spying (tapping the phones of the AP / Fox)
and on and on it goes
Freedom and equality in America has always been a work in progress, in my estimation.
The money argument is not stupid. It's big business, even in public prisons.
Not if you are an alcohol, tobacco, or pharmaceutical company.
